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● 09.28.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 28/09/2022: Fedora 37 Changes, Ubuntu Desktop Advertised as ‘Clown’ (Controlled by GAFAM)

Posted in News Roundup at 6:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Star Labs StarFighter Linux is a 3.1 pound laptop with a 16 inch 4K display and Intel or AMD processor options – Liliputing

• Linux PC maker Star Labs has announced that it’s next laptop will be a powerhouse that also has a few nifty privacy and security features.

• The upcoming StarFighter laptop has a 16 inch, 4K display, support for up to an Intel Core i9-12900H or AMD Ryzen 7 6800H processor, up to 64GB of RAM, and up to 8TB of storage. But it weighs just 3.1 pounds and has a starting price of around $900.

• [...]

• To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used by this tutorial, you may delete the VM instance.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Support for Rust will be merged in 6.1 kernel, says Torvalds

• Torvalds added that following the initial merge in the 6.1 kernel, there was no real timetable.

Applications

=> ↺ 8 GUI Package Managers for Arch Linux

• Installing Arch Linux is considered challenging. This is why several Arch-based distributions exist to make things easier by providing a graphical installer.

• Even if you manage to install Arch Linux, you’ll notice that it relies heavily on the command line. You’ll have to open the terminal if you have to install applications or update the system.

• Yes! Arch Linux does not have a software center. Shocking for many, I know.

• If you feel uncomfortable using the command line for managing applications, you can install a GUI tool. This helps in searching for packages and installing and removing them from the comfort of the GUI.

• Wondering which graphical frontend for pacman commands you should use? I have some suggestions to help you get started.

=> ↺ Subfinder: Fast Passive Subdomain Enumeration Tool in Linux

• Have you ever wondered what the other subdomains the root site uses? and how to find them quickly within seconds to start your bug bounty game?

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Remote LUKS Unlocking: Unlocking your LUKS via SSH and Tor

• If you want to unlock your computer remotely, and you are facing the problem, that you can’t reach your computer before your computer is unlocked, Tor will help you to reach your computer, even during the boot process.

=> ↺ Ghost as my blogging platform

• Among all the options in my brief research, I liked Ghost CMS the most. Problem is, their managed hosting is more than I’d like to pay, so I self-hosted it. As of this writing, their starter plan is $9/mo billed yearly (or $11 billed monthly).

=> ↺ Creating Custom RSS Feeds For Following Others

• Part of the work curating my icon gallery sites is staying abreast of new icon designs. This means following individual icon designers in order to keep tabs on when they post new work, people like Michael Flarup, Gavin Nelson, Matthew Skiles, and Yannick Lung.

• But how do you keep up with the creative work of individuals without missing something?

=> ↺ Enable Debugging Mode in SSH to Troubleshoot Connectivity Issues

• In this article, we will show you how to turn on debugging mode while running SSH in Linux. This will enable you to see what actually unfolds when you execute an ssh command to connect to a remote Linux server using the verbose mode or debugging mode.

=> ↺ How to Delete Local Git Branch

• Git is an amazing version control tool. It allows you to have multiple branches to isolate your code from the main branch. Which, in turn helps you work with multiple people at once.

• In the previous article, you learned about creating branches in Git. Learn about deleting them in this one.

=> ↺ How to Install Elasticsearch and Kibana on CentOS 7

• “Installing Elasticsearch and Kibana are handy for analyzing various data and logs on your system. Elasticsearch offers a flexible search engine for storing data, while Kibana is the web interface that helps visualize logs and other data. This guide covers the installation of Elasticsearch and Kibana on CentOS 7.”

=> ↺ How to remove dangling and unused Docker images

• Docker is a free and open source OS-level virtualization system which allows us to pack and deliver applications together with their dependencies in isolated and reproducible environments called containers. Docker containers are built on the base of Images, which can become “dangling” in certain situations.

• In this tutorial we learn what is a dangling image, and how to recognize and remove dangling and unused Docker images from our system.

=> ↺ How to Install Microsoft Edge on Raspberry Pi OS

=> ↺ a password stealer

=> ↺ How to Mount LUKS Encrypted Drive Partition in Linux

=> ↺ Feeding the Cloud/ posts/ Upgrading from chan_sip to res_pjsip in Asterisk 18

=> ↺ How to install and use Podman in Rocky/Alma Linux 9

=> ↺ How to install Moshi Monsters Rewritten Desktop on a Chromebook in 2022

• Today we are looking at how to install Moshi Monsters Rewritten Desktop on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

=> ↺ How to install and use Chrony on CentOS 9 Stream

• In this post, you will learn how to install and use Chrony on CentOS 9 Stream. So, you can use it to synchronize your server time with other NTP servers.

• In very few words, chrony is an implementation of NTP that allows us to synchronize the time of our server with another server dedicated to it using the mentioned protocol.

=> ↺ Bash Command Not Found, Common Reasons and Solutions

• “Most of the operations in the Linux operating system are performed by executing commands. However, at times, you are unable to run certain commands in Linux, i.e., you face different sorts of errors while executing these commands. One of the most frequently faced errors by Linux users is the Bash Command Not Found error, and it occurs whenever you try to execute a certain command, either with or without any of the available options. In this article, we will discuss some of the most common reasons that lead to this error, along with some solutions to each of these problems.”

=> ↺ Install XFCE in Linux Mint 21

• “XFCE is one of the popularly available desktop environments for the Linux operating system. It is a lightweight and hence faster desktop environment but still offers an appealing look and feel. In this guide, we will learn to install the XFCE desktop on a Linux Mint 21 system.”

=> ↺ What Not to Recommend to Flatpak Users | TheEvilSkeleton

• Whenever I browse through the web, I find many “tips and tricks” from various blog writers, YouTubers and others who recommend users to take steps that either they aren’t supposed to, or have better alternatives. In this article, I will go over some of those steps you should not be taking and explain why.

Games

=> ↺ New Steam Games with Native Linux Clients – 2022-09-28 Edition – Boiling Steam

• Between 2022-09-21 and 2022-09-28 there were 16 New Steam games released with Native Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 220 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 7.3 % of total released titles.

=> ↺ I got my hands on Project Killswitch #steamdeck #killswitch #dbrand – Invidious

=> ↺ Online Gaming Is Becoming Mainstream, Where is the Regulation?

• Online gaming is a fairly well-regulated space in many countries; however, in India, there is no regulation whatsoever. In the past few years, the niche online gaming industry has grown exponentially to become one of the fastest-growing sectors in India. In 2021, the market was worth USD2.2 billion and is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 30% to reach USD7 billion by 2026, according to Statista.

• Given how fast online gaming is growing in India, a central government panel, in a confidential draft (seen by Reuters), called for the creation of a new regulatory body under the IT ministry. Last year, Sushil Kumar Modi, a prominent BJP leader and MP, called for a comprehensive regulation of online gaming to curb societal costs such as gambling addictions and financial ruin.

=> ↺ Steam Deck gets a small bug-fix Client Beta out now

• Valve has released another Client Beta for the Steam Deck which is now available for testing, mostly just fixing up issues. To try it yourself you need to be in either the Beta or Preview channels available in Settings >System >Steam Update Channel.

=> ↺ Silence of the Siren is a gorgeous new strategy game from the Project Hospital devs

• Oxymoron Games, developers of the Project Hospital game have announced their second title with Silence of the Siren and it’s looking quite impressive.

=> ↺ JSAUX released a firmware update for their Steam Deck Docking Stations

• JSAUX (pronounced Jay-Socks), announced recently that they’ve made available a new firmware update for their first two models of the Steam Deck Docking Station.

=> ↺ Mellow indie adventure One Dreamer is out now

• One Dreamer is a point and click programming adventure game about a burned-out indie developer making games. It’s officially out with Native Linux support. Note: key provided by the developer.

=> ↺ Rust for Steam Deck / Linux still some time away

• For those of you wanting to play Rust again on Linux desktop or Steam Deck, it sounds like it’s still some time away as Facepunch continues thinking on Easy Anti-Cheat support.

=> ↺ Don’t Shit On My #!$@& Roof is the latest 2D horde shooter out now

• You know me by now, I’m going to play everything I can that in some way resembles Vampire Survivors and this new influx of horde games and Don’t Shit On My #!$@& Roof is the latest. Note: personal purchase.

=> ↺ Gallery: Video games exhibit opens at National Library in Tallinn

• Video games from the 1980s until the present day are currently on show in a new interactive exhibition at the Estonian National Library in Tallinn.

=> ↺ Trombone Controls Virtual Trombone

• Guitar Hero was a cultural phenomenon a little over a decade ago, and showed that there was a real fun time to be had playing a virtual instrument on a controller. There are several other similar games available now for different instruments, including one called Trombone Champ that [Hung Truong] is a fan of which replaces the traditional guitar with a trombone. The sliding action of a trombone is significantly different than the frets of a guitar, making it a unique challenge in a video game. But an extra challenge is building a controller for the game that works by playing a real trombone.

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ The lsb_release program and the /etc/os-release file

• The ‘no’ part is that the implementation of lsb_release isn’t standardized; in fact, Fedora and Ubuntu have two entirely different versions. Fedora’s version is a shell script originally from the ‘Free Standards Group’ that has been made to check /etc/redhat-release first. Ubuntu’s version is a Python program that seems to ultimately wind up reading /usr/lib/os-release, supplemented by interesting information that’s found in /usr/share/distro-info. The Ubuntu lsb_release seems to have originally been written for Debian, but I don’t know its history beyond that. While the arguments and behavior of lsb_release may be standardized, that’s the limit.

BSD

=> ↺ Writing FreeBSD Kernel Modules in Rust

• In this post we’ve shown that it is possible to write a simple kernel module for FreeBSD in Rust. More complete integration of Rust into existing operating system kernels is going to take a lot more time and effort, but on Linux these efforts are progressing quickly and it’s surely only a matter of time before other operating systems start to give low-level Rust serious consideration. The loadable kernel module interface is a good starting point for this work because it’s relatively isolated from the core kernel code and is on the boundary where external actors may interact with the kernel. Rust’s safety guarantees are an excellent match for this security boundary.

• In the future we may start to see experimental rewrites of core kernel components into Rust, bringing stronger security guarantees to the networking layers or filesystem operations.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Fedora 37 Drops the Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding

• A recent change in open-source Mesa package config file in Fedora 37 disables the decoding of h264dec, h264enc, h265dec, h265enc, vc1dec via GPU.

• If you use the open-source graphics library Mesa in AMD/Intl GPU devices, then you will lose the hardware acceleration support while playing videos with h264, h265 and decoding of VC1.

• Reason? Patent and licencing for H264/H265 codecs.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Launch Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop on Google Cloud

• Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish was published in April this year. Ubuntu users are excited about its advanced desktop features, such as support for Wayland and GNOME 42 (I will use SliM this time since I won’t play any game in this demo). But recently, some Ubuntu users say that they can’t launch the Jammy Jellyfish desktop in Google Cloud by following my previous blog: Launch Ubuntu Desktop on Google Cloud. That’s too bad because Google Cloud gives Ubuntu users such a seamless experience through Chrome. Don’t worry, you can continue using Chrome access to your Ubuntu Desktop on Google Cloud. Just follow this article.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Introducing PureBoot Basic

• PureBoot is our high-security, tamper-detecting boot firmware. With the release of version 22 we have added a new feature called “PureBoot Basic” that lets you optionally disable the tamper detection, leaving you with a clean, simple, and still powerful boot firmware with more recovery options than a traditional coreboot BIOS and GRUB.

• Normally when you boot Pureboot, the Librem Key verifies the computer’s boot firmware is still in a verified state. Librem Key is a USB token that integrates with Pureboot and helps in protecting your system from snooping while you are away. Giving you peace of mind your computer software is untampered with.

• For those that don’t need PureBoot’s extra security but want some of the other features, Pureboot Basic get’s out of the way and lets you boot by disabling tamper-detecting features.

=> ↺ TRS-80 Model 100 Gets Arduino Heart Transplant

• When [Stephen Cass] found himself with a broken Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 portable computer, the simplest solution was to buy another broken one and make one working computer from two non-working computers. However, this left him with a dilemma — what to do with the (now even more) broken one left over?

• Naturally, he did what a lot of us would do and used modern hardware to interface with the original parts that still work. In this case it meant replacing the motherboard with an Arduino Mega 2560.

=> ↺ Make a Lunar Light Tide Clock

• The design is based on a ESP32 microcontroller attached to a real time clock with battery back-up running a tide program that allows it to output a light based corona that designates high and low tide. The microcontroller will run the tide script endlessly as long as it has power, requiring no internet connection for its calculations.

=> ↺ Lunar Light Tide Clock

• The TTGO version of the ESP32 board accommodates a screen that details the HI/Low tide Hour and Minute for the next 12 hours as well as the number of hours to next Hi/Low and the current tide level in feet. The back lighting of the moon changes with the hours of the day and can even accommodate hidden features such as celebrating birthdays or holidays with customized lighting patterns.

=> ↺ Picamera2 beta release

• One of the new features in the latest set of Raspberry Pi OS images is, for the first time, pre-installed beta release versions of the new Picamera2 Python camera library.

• For those not familiar with Picamera2, it’s the replacement for the old PiCamera Python library. PiCamera proved hugely popular with users, as it provided a much more approachable way of accessing the Raspberry Pi’s camera system. But as we’ve discussed on this blog a number of times (An open source camera stack for Raspberry Pi, Bullseye camera system and A preview release of the Picamera2 library), we’re moving away from proprietary and closed camera APIs (Broadcom’s in this case) to an open framework based on libcamera.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Build an open source project using this essential advice

• Open source is a flourishing and beneficial ecosystem that publicly solves problems in communities and industries using software developed through a decentralized model and community contributions. Over the years, this ecosystem has grown in number and strength among hobbyists and professionals alike. It’s mainstream now—even proprietary companies use open source to build software.

• With the ecosystem booming, many developers want to get in and build new open source projects. The question is: How do you achieve that successfully?

• This article will demystify the lifecycle and structure of open source projects. I want to give you an overview of what goes on inside an open source project and show you how to build a successful and sustainable project based on my personal experience.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ Best Selling Organic Chemistry Textbook Goes Open Access After Professor Regains The Copyright

• It’s well known that textbook prices are generally high. That’s in part because academic publishers effectively have a monopoly when it comes to standard texts. Very often, these are texts that students simply must have as part of their course, which means they will pay even exorbitant prices.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Call for testing: openssh-9.1

• OpenSSH 9.1p1 is almost ready for release, so we would appreciate testing on as many platforms and systems as possible. This is a bugfix release.

=> ↺ Unions in C

• “Just like structures, Unions are also user-defined datatypes, but unlike structures, Union members share the same memory location, and they do not have different memory locations. If we declare two variables in a Structure and then check their address, we will see that both have different addresses, which means that members of a structure get different memory locations. Instead of that, we declare the same two variables in a Union and check their addresses; it will be observed that both of their addresses are the same, which proves that both of the constants share the same memory location. In the case of the structure, an integer will take four blocks, but in a union, both the integer and character will share the same memory block.

• One thing to keep in mind is that in a Union, members will share the same location of memory, which means that if changes are made in one member, they will be reflected in the other members of the union as well. The union’s size is taken according to the size of the greatest member of a union. The union members can be accessed through pointers by using the (->) operator. If we want to store information about multiple objects like Books and Stores, we will have to make two structures for each of them. It will waste a lot of memory. For that purpose, unions are used. Unions can save information to multiple objects.”

Python

=> ↺ Find slow data processing tasks (before your customers do)

• Here are some of the ways you can discover your data processing jobs are too slow:

• 1. Jobs start getting killed when they hit timeouts.

• 2. Customers start complaining about slow or failed jobs.

• 3. Your cloud computing bill is twice what it was last month.

• While these notification mechanisms do work, it’s probably best not to rely on them. Life is easier when jobs finish successfully, customers are happy, and you have plenty of money left over in your budget.

• That means you want to identify unexpected slowness or high memory usage before the situation get that bad. The sooner you can identify performance problems, the sooner you can fix them.

• So how can you identify inefficient tasks in your data pipeline or workflow? Let’s find out!

Rust

=> ↺ Free Rust training to FOSS programmers

• The course is in English using the Big Blue Button video conferencing system (accessed with a web browser). You should install the Rust toolchain before the course starts: either using packages for your operating system or using rustup. Your installation works if you can run the following commands and get the expected output.

• [...]

• This offer is limited to people who already contribute to FOSS projects via code: to meaningfully learn Rust you need to already know how to program, and I’m biased towards FOSS, sorry.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Infinite Axis Printing On The Ender 3

• It’s taken years to perfect them, but desktop 3D printers that uses a conveyor belt instead of a traditional build plate to provide a theoretically infinite build volume are now finally on the market. Unfortunately, they command a considerable premium. Even the offering from Creality, a company known best for their budget printers, costs $1,000 USD.

=> ↺ William Rivers Pitt Dared to Hope for Our Future. Let’s Do Right by His Memory.

=> ↺ Jeffrey Sommers

=> ↺ ‘There’s a Lot of Jubilance and Healing in Reparations’

• Janine Jackson interviewed Alicia Bell and Collette Watson about media reparations for the September 23, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

=> ↺ The Legacy of Hilary Mantel

• Adaptations for both television and stage followed, and it is a tribute to the power of Mantel’s exploration of the ambiguities surrounding Cromwell’s dramatic life that these versions brought many enthusiastic new readers to her novels. She became, relatively late in her life, a literary star.

=> ↺ Hua Hsu’s Lesson in Friendship

• In the late 1990s, two freshmen at UC Berkeley meet, and they seem like opposites at first: One is a sincere and confident Japanese American frat boy into the Dave Matthews Band, and the other a quiet and sardonic Taiwanese American who loves zines and grunge. One is comfortable with slinging beers and talking to girls; the other prides himself on staying in on Friday nights. But they exchange cigarettes, opinions on music and books, and from the rigid categories teenagers slot themselves into emerge Ken and Hua, a pair of close friends. Their friendship gets solidified through endless ribbing, car rides, and on one occasion, failing to throw a Snapple bottle through the window of a rival frat house. And then, a month before their senior year begins, Ken is killed in a carjacking. In his grief, Hua becomes “obsessed with the possibility of a sentence that could wend its way backward,” and the indelible marks of this friendship rewrite the contours of his life.

=> ↺ Opinion | Why We Need #TamponsForAll

• Have you had a hard time finding tampons recently? You’re not alone. Tampons have been more difficult to come by in recent months especially if you live in certain states, like West Virginia, or have a preferred brand, which many people do. With headlines about tampon shortages, many are looking for answers.

=> ↺ Letters: Shinzo Abe’s Legacy

• I hope you will allow me to expand upon some of the points in the article. As the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, he was the epitome of Japan’s powerful right-wing political forces. He served as a special adviser to the group Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference), which claimed that Imperial Japan should be lauded for liberating Asia from Western colonial powers, that the Tokyo war crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that war crimes such as the Rape of Nanking in 1937 were exaggerated or fabricated.

=> ↺ Hang up your claws, Hedwig! PostNord is testing parcel deliveries using drones

• The post service PostNord has been testing parcel deliveries using drones across Zealand. A drone was recently released from a post terminal in Køge, south of Copenhagen, to a private residence in Slagelse in west Zealand – a distance of 50 km.

• PostNord used a fixed-wing drone, which means it can take off and land like a helicopter, but can fly longer distances like an aeroplane.

• The drone has a maximum speed of 150 kilometres per hour, but on this occasion its speed did not exceed 100 km/h. In certain weather and wind conditions, it is advised not to travel too fast.

=> ↺ 24 Hours Of Le Airplanes

• There’s no more famous road endurance race than the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where teams compete to see how far they can drive in a single 24-hour window. The race presents unique challenges not found in other types of racing. While RC airplanes may not have a similar race, [Daniel] a.k.a. [rctestflight] created a similar challenge for himself by attempting to fly an RC airplane non-stop for an entire day, and a whole host of interesting situations cropped up before and during flight.

=> ↺ A Solar-Powered Point-and-Shoot, Circa 1961

• Try to put yourself in the place of an engineer tasked with building a camera in 1961. Your specs include making it easy to operate, giving it automatic exposure control, and, oh yeah — you can’t use batteries. How on Earth do you accomplish that? With a very clever mechanism powered by light, as it turns out.

Science

=> ↺ Current Loop Extends Wired Microphones Past 1 Km

• A problem which beset early telephone engineers was that as the length of their lines increased, so did the distortion of whatever signal they wanted to transmit. This was corrected once they had gained an understanding of the capacitance and inductance of a long cable. The same effects hamper attempts to place microphones on long lines, and [Leo’s Bag of Tricks] has a solution for doing that using Cat5 cable. The application is audio surveillance, but we think the technique is useful enough to have application elsewhere.

Education

=> ↺ Big list of medical abbreviations

• Just a big list of medical abbreviations. Note: [...]

=> ↺ When Computers Lived In The Janitor’s Closet

• I started school at a pretty exciting time in the history of computers. They were about to transition from being a tool for hobbyists, researchers, and the military to being something that could be brought into schools and even homes.

Hardware

=> ↺ 3D Printing The Key To A Bass Clarinet

• Playing music as part of a group typically requires that not only are all of the instruments tuned to each other, but also that the musicians play in a specific key. For some musicians, like pianists and percussionists, this is not terribly difficult as their instruments are easy to play in any key. At the other end of the spectrum would be the diatonic harmonica, which is physically capable of playing in a single key only. Other orchestral instruments, on the other hand, are typically made for a specific key but can transpose into other keys with some effort. But, if you have 3D printed your instrument like this bass clarinet from [Jared], then you can build it to be in whichever key you’d like.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ 4 Ways the U.S. Failed COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging

• This has become tougher with each successive vaccination campaign.

=> ↺ The Mississippi Water Crisis Is the Tip of the Global Disaster to Come

• Addressing the UN General Assembly last week, Secretary General António Guterres called the climate crisis “our suicidal war against nature.” That war’s devastation can be seen in Jackson, Miss., where four residents have filed a lawsuit against the city for failing to protect the water supply from extreme weather events.

=> ↺ “Immoral & Sinful”: Bishop Barber Blasts Mississippi Gov. for Failing to Protect Jackson’s Water

• We speak with Bishop William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign to get an update on the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, where tens of thousands of residents are still without clean tap water. “It’s an immoral and sinful violation of equal protection under the law and human rights,” says Barber, who led a rally Monday outside the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson demanding the state reverse decades of disinvestment in the majority-Black capital. “Everything we’re talking about was created by bad policy, therefore it can be fixed by good policy.”

=> ↺ ‘We Have to Fight’: Poor People’s Campaign Rallies for Clean Public Water in Jackson

• “People are tired of having to wash their babies in poisoned water.”

=> ↺ Applauding Biden Push to End US Hunger, Groups Demand ‘Deeper’ Structural Reforms

• “This strategy builds on existing programs to ensure the food and nutrition security of the millions of Americans who face challenges putting food on the table.”

=> ↺ Practice the One Percent Movements People!

• Since then, there have been no mass rallies or marches for universal healthcare. Sporadic demonstrations by a few hundred people on the Capitol steps showed insensitive members, who have their own comprehensive health insurance, the decline of civic energy.

=> ↺ Progressives Applaud Biden for Lowering Medicare Part B Premiums

• According to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the standard monthly premium for Part B enrollees will be $164.90 in 2023, a decrease of $5.20 from 2022. The annual deductible for all recipients will be $226, a decrease of $7 from this year.

=> ↺ ‘Shameful’: Steny Hoyer, No. 2 House Democrat, Opposes Stock Trading Ban

• House Majority Leader Hoyer (D-Md.) reportedly indicated during meetings with colleagues that he intends to vote against a bill that would reform the loophole-ridden STOCK Act when it is brought to the floor, which could happen as soon as this week.

Proprietary

=> ↺ The Execution of All Things

• Today in Tedium: Whether the way you roll is .EXE, .APP, or .SH, you most assuredly rely on some executable things in your life as a computer user. Maybe you don’t even realize it—after all, Android and iOS really go out of their way to separate you from the process of direct file execution—iOS with a whole flippin’ App Store. Of course, the nature of execution is such that every type of computer has its own way of doing things, and that way of doing things may not be compatible with any other. As a result, it leads to a lot of incompatiblity over time—some of which we’re talking about today. Continuing on our list of things that didn’t make it, we now lean really hard on once-common file formats that execute things—or, at least, look like they do. Today’s Tedium executes some code. (Got a problem with the list? See the disclaimer.) — Ernie @ Tedium

=> ↺ Alan Alda and Atariwriter

• Robinson snuck an Easter Egg into the application, so his name would appear when a “certain combination of joystick inputs were entered”. Atari found out and sued Robinson. They settled out of court and removed the Easter Egg. However, a few copies of the original version still exist.

=> ↺ Apple to Now Manufacture iPhone 14 in India

• Tech Giant Apple Inc has announced the manufacturing of the latest iPhone 14 series in India. The production would take place at the company’s manufacturer, Foxconn‘s Sriperumbudur facility in Chennai.

• According to a few sources, customers will shortly be able to purchase the made-in-India iPhone 14 as the company ramps production. With increasing customer demand on anticipated features and a wait period of 4-5 weeks, the new models will have an improved camera, and powerful sensors, along with a satellite messaging feature to send SOS texts. As part of the series’ line-up, four models are available including iPhone 14, Plus, Pro and ProMax.

Privatisation/Privateering

=> ↺ Island-Wide Blackout Confirms the Failure of LUMA, the Newly Privatized Electric Utility in Puerto Rico

• In the absence of timely territorial and federal relief, community-based organizations in Puerto Rico have filled the gap. One of them, a non-profit in the city of Ponce called Un Nuevo Amanecer (“A New Dawn”) has rushed to provide organizational, clean-up and other services. Formed in 2017 in the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the group focuses on the locality of Playa del Ponce, two-thirds of whose residents live in poverty. One of its volunteer leaders is David Southgate, who told me about his concern that “catastrophic homelessness” would be one of the main consequences of the storm. He added:

Security

=> ↺ iTWire – SA to pay for new licences for Optus breach victims

• South Australia will pick up the tab for any residents in the state who are affected by the Optus data breach and need to get a new driver’s licence.

• In a tweet, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas said: “The South Australian State Government will waive the usual replacement fee for South Australians requiring a new driver’s licence as a result of the recent Optus data breach.”

• NSW Minister for Fair Trading and Digital Government Victor Dominello said affected Optus users in the state would have to pay $29 upfront to replace their licences.

=> ↺ Wolfi Linux provides the control needed to fix modern supply chain threats

• There’s been a massive push for supply chain security in the last few years: integrity protection, vulnerability management, and transparency. This push has left organizations struggling to secure their pipelines and manage vulnerabilities, especially when running in the cloud. Existing tooling doesn’t support supply chain security natively and requires users to bolt on critical features like signatures, provenance, and software bills of material (SBOM).

=> ↺ Attacking Encrypted HTTP Communications | Pen Test Partners

• The Reolink RLC-520A PoE camera obfuscates its HTTP communication by encrypting the POST body data. This level of security does defend against opportunistic attackers but falls short when defending against persistent attackers.

=> ↺ Time’s up: Microsoft Exchange Online users face a key security deadline Saturday

=> ↺ This is not about security but about more vendor lock-in and more NSA surveillance by consolidation/centralisation

• Microsoft is about to eliminate a method for logging into its Exchange Online email service that is widely considered vulnerable and outdated, but that some businesses still rely upon.

• The company has said that as of Oct. 1, it will begin to disable what’s known as “basic authentication” for customers that continue to use the system.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Google’s Perilous Plan for a Cloud Center in Saudi Arabia is an Irresponsible Threat to Human Rights

• These cloud data centers, which already exist in Jakarta, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Santiago, Chile, London, Los Angeles, and dozens of other cities around the world, are utilized by companies to run all aspects of their businesses. They store data, run databases, and provide IT for corporate human resources, customer service, legal, security, and communications departments.

=> ↺ Dating Apps Thrive in China, but Not Just for Romance

• Investors have also poured more than $5.3 billion into dating and social networking companies in the country last year, up from $300 million in 2019, according to PitchBook. And China’s largest tech companies, such as ByteDance and Tencent, are testing, acquiring and investing in new apps that promise to bring strangers together.

=> ↺ Leaking Passwords through the Spellchecker

• Sometimes browser spellcheckers leak passwords: [...]

=> ↺ [Reposted] Breyer on Europol lawsuit: Courts must protect us where politics is hostile to fundamental rights

• The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is going to court over the EU’s attempt to retroactively legalise large amounts of data Europol illegally collected on unsuspected citizens, including mobile phone and air traveller data. The EDPS is reacting to the heavily criticised Europol reform, which has given the agency broad powers since June 2022.

=> ↺ TikTok May Face $29 Million Fine for Failing to Protect Children’s Privacy

• While the findings are provisional, the legal document sent to TikTok by Britain’s data protection agency, the Information Commissioner’s Office, constitutes a formal notification that regulators intend to impose a fine.

=> ↺ Meta Sued For Tap Dancing Around Apple’s New App Privacy Rules

• Last year, Apple received ample coverage about how the company was making privacy easier for its customers by introducing a new, simple, tracking opt-out button for users as part of an iOS 14.5 update.

Confidentiality

=> ↺ REFLOW Portable Crypto Functions

• Reflow provides a production-ready implementation that is easy to embed in end-to-end encryption applications. By making it possible for multiple parties to anonymously authenticate and produce untraceable signatures, its goal is to leverage privacy-by-design scenarios that minimize the information exchange needed for document authentication.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The War in Ukraine Is at a Decisive Turning Point

• Two recent and dramatic developments suggest that the war in Ukraine has reached a decisive turning point. On the battlefield itself, Ukrainian forces—bolstered by significant deliveries of advanced US and European weapons—have scored a decisive victory in the northern Kharkiv region, freeing over 3,000 square miles of Ukrainian territory from Russian control and decimating the underperforming Russian forces that had been deployed there. Meanwhile, in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin—exhibiting no remorse for his brutal invasion of Ukraine—announced a “partial” mobilization of Russian reserves and warned of horrific, even nuclear responses to any further Western arms aid to Kyiv. With no peace talks currently under way, it appears that the fighting in Ukraine will proceed at ever-increasing levels of violence, with a corresponding increase in human casualties and physical destruction.

=> ↺ Poet Artem Kamardin arrested and raped for reading anti-war poetry — Meduza

• Poet and activist Artem Kamardin, 31, was arrested in Moscow. According to his lawyer Leonid Solovyov, Kamardin was beaten and then raped with dumbbells during a search on September 26th.

=> ↺ Journalists are being trained to gather evidence of war crimes — starting in Ukraine

• Investigators appointed by the United Nations have confirmed that Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, including documented cases of civilian executions, torture and sexual violence.

• But there is another group in a unique position to track atrocities in Ukraine — journalists. The Reckoning Project is a training program that exists to teach journalists not just to collect information for their stories, but also evidence of war crimes that can be used in international courts.

• One of its creators is a longtime war correspondent, Janine di Giovanni, who joined All Things Considered for an interview to share the significance of expanding war crimes documentation.

• This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

=> ↺ In a big Jan. 6 case, Oath Keepers go on trial for seditious conspiracy

• In the highest-profile prosecution so far stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the founder of the Oath Keepers and four others individuals linked to the far-right, anti-government group go on trial Tuesday on seditious conspiracy and other charges stemming from the deadly assault.

=> ↺ Russian journalist who fled to Finland: “Poor and disadvantaged” will be sent to front lines

• Shelin and other Rosbalt journalists now find themselves on a list of people the Kremlin deems have worked for a foreign agent, meaning he could face imprisonment if he returns to his home country.

=> ↺ Erdogan threatens Greek islands with invasion after “provocations”

• The Greek ambassador in Ankara was summoned on Monday, and protests were sent to Washington over the presence of military vehicles on Greek islands, in the Aegean, near the Turkish coast.

• Turkey accused Greece over the presence of US armoured vehicles on two Greek islands in the Aegean. They say these islands should be demilitarised according to ‘international agreements’.

• Greece branded the move as “completely unfounded and incompatible with international law”. They say international law, gives Greece the right to defend its islands.

=> ↺ Why should the sanctions against Russia be lifted – if even Orbán voted for them?

• The Hungarian government is the only EU government actively speaking up against the sanctions on Russia, claiming that they are not working. But what would be the right solution, and why are the Russians bothered by the sanctions if they are not working? We were given a crash course in politics and economy by government MPs.

=> ↺ State of danger may be extended by 180 days an indefinite amount of times from November

=> ↺ Opinion | Why We Need To Teach Nuclear War

• We do not teach nuclear war, but we need to.

=> ↺ From Exodus to Marvel: A Brief History of Hollywood’s Justification of Israeli War Crimes

• Expectedly, many pro-Palestine activists in the United States and around the world fumed. It is one thing to introduce an ordinary Israeli character, with the mere aim of normalizing Israel, an unrepenting apartheid state, in the eyes of Marvel’s impressionable young audiences; but it is far more sinister to normalize a state intelligence agency, the Mossad, known for its numerous bloody assassinations, sabotage and torture.

=> ↺ Why Do Republicans Support Sanctions on Venezuela?

• After all, look at how Republicans are railing against the “invasion” of the United States from Latin America. Why, a few years ago, a guy even went on a rampage in El Paso in which he killed several Hispanics because he felt he had a right to kill invaders. 

=> ↺ Understanding Libya’s Relentless Destabilization

• Alongside assistance from regional Middle Eastern allies, the NATO-led intervention was successful in helping local militant groups topple Gaddafi, who was later captured and executed in October 2011. Soon after his death, questions were immediately raised about how Libya could be politically restructured and avoid becoming a failed state. After militant groups refused to disarm, they along with their allies began to contest territory and control over Libya’s fragile new national institutions.

=> ↺ The Able Archer Nuclear Test: “The Greatest Intelligence Failure in U.S. History”

• U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Leonard Perroots, NATO deputy intelligence chief, on duty during the exercise, received reports of the activity but decided not to recommend that NATO nuclear forces mirror the increase. He later said he had a gut feeling nothing was amiss. A later review by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) said Perroots decision “made in ignorance (was) fortuitous, if ill informed . . . “

=> ↺ Northern Ireland: a Protestant State for a Protestant People? Not Any More

• The new census figures published on Thursday show that there are 45.7 per cent of people in Northern Ireland with a Catholic background as opposed to 43.5 per cent who are Protestant or belong to other Christian faiths. In 2011, 48 per cent were Protestant and 45 per cent Catholic, but the majority/minority positions were expected to switch in the 2021 census, as has now occurred.

=> ↺ US, UK sabotaged peace deal because they ‘don’t care about Ukraine’: fmr. NATO adviser

=> ↺ ‘This was not an accident’: European investigators believe ‘unprecedented’ damage to Nord Stream pipelines is the work of either Russia or Ukraine — Meduza

• Nord Stream AG, the operator of the Nord Stream pipeline network, announced Monday evening that three offshore strings of the pipeline system had sustained damage. The strings in question are part of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, both of which pass through the Baltic Sea to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany. According to the company, the incident, which occurred near the Danish island of Bornholm, involved an “unprecedented” level of damage.

=> ↺ Newly surfaced document alleges Chechen fighters raped ‘DNR’ soldiers — Meduza

• In a document published on Telegram, a group of women who are reportedly the wives and mothers of soldiers from the “Donetsk People’s Militia” claim that their relatives were raped by soldiers from Chechnya.

=> ↺ Why don’t Russians march on Moscow? Resisting the unpopular draft requires coordination, says the political theorist Vladimir Gelman — Meduza

• Following last week’s official announcement of Russia’s mobilization, anti-war protests are once again resulting in thousands of arrests — 2,400 by the present count, as acknowledged by the United Nations. The most heated protests took place in Dagestan, where the police fired machine guns into the air and still could not dispel the crowds. The majority of Russia’s regions, however, did not come close to this kind of protest activity. Meduza in English has summarized Vladimir Gelman’s detailed analysis of protest behavior in Russia. Here is what he has told us about what stifles protest in Russia — in our own condensed retelling.

=> ↺ Literally incredible The results of Russian-staged annexation ‘referendums’ — Meduza

• Today was the final day of the vote in the Kremlin-organized “referendums” on the future of several Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories. Results from polling stations located within Russia were reported earlier today by the Interfax, followed by further figures, reported from the regions where “referendums” were held.

=> ↺ North Ossetian authorities to limit traffic into the region amid crowding at border crossings — Meduza

• North Ossetian authorities will place restrictions on the number of vehicles that can enter the region. Regional head Sergey Menyailo plans to sign an order imposing the restrictions soon, according to the republic’s official website.

=> ↺ Judge known for dissenting opinions resigns from Russian Constitutional Court — Meduza

• Judge Konstantin Aranovsky has resigned from Russia’s Constitutional Court, according to the court’s official website.

=> ↺ Film director Andrey Zvyagintsev resigns from Russian Oscar committee — Meduza

• Russian film director Andrey Zvyagintsev has stepped down from his country’s Oscar committee in the wake of the news that the Russian Film Academy will not nominate a film to the upcoming Oscars competition, he told Meduza.

=> ↺ ‘We will solve this problem in the interests of our country.’ Kazakhstan to negotiate with Moscow over increased Russians migration. — Meduza

• The Kazakh authorities will hold talks with Russia against the backdrop of the mass arrival of Russian citizens in the republic. Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced this at a public meeting in the Turkestan Region.

=> ↺ Congressional Negotiators Agree on $12 Billion in New Ukraine Aid

• The funds will be included in a government funding bill.

=> ↺ openDemocracy Exclusive: Weapons Firms Install 50 Staff Inside UK Ministry of Defense

• BAE among arms firms paying Ministry of Defence staff’s salaries while winning lucrative contracts.

=> ↺ ‘The locals treat us like refugees — and they’re right’ In his own words, a Russian man recalls fleeing to Kazakhstan to evade the draft — Meduza

=> ↺ Patriarch Kirill expects ‘spiritual mobilization’ from Russia’s Orthodox Christians — Meduza

• Following a liturgy at the Moscow Christ the Savior cathedral, Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox church, gave a sermon exhorting Russia’s Orthodox Christians towards “spiritual mobilization.” According to the church authority, this will assist in the “compete reconciliation of Russia and Ukraine.” The Interfax quotes the church hierarch’s sermon:

=> ↺ Russian man paddleboards into Estonia to escape draft — Meduza

• Estonian border agents arrested a 38-year-old Russian citizen for illegally crossing the border between the two countries in an attempt to avoid mobilization, Estonian migration official Eerik Purgel said on Tuesday.

=> ↺ 1,000 Deaths In Custody Went Unreported Last Year Because US Justice System Doesn’t Care About The People It Jails

• Tossing people into prison is throwing them away. They’re no longer real human beings. They’re just items being processed, moved through the system at whatever pace the system feels is appropriate. And once you’ve begun dehumanizing the people in your care, you can easily stop caring about them.

=> ↺ Prisoners Forced to Work for Showers Are Now Being Punished for Taking Them

• For the past 20 years, Steven Brooks has worked various jobs behind bars in California’s prisons in exchange for a shower. Before the pandemic, under severe drought conditions, Steven found this arrangement unhygienic, but in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and overcrowding in prisons, the 50-year-old has found it to be inhumane.

=> ↺ Human rights activists say mobilized Russians being taken to front without training — Meduza

• The First Department human rights organization claims that mobilized Russians are being taken to the front without any training.

=> ↺ ‘A Really Big Hole’: Sabotage Suspected as Nord Stream Pipelines Spew Methane

• “The damage that occurred in one day simultaneously at three lines of offshore pipelines of the Nord Stream system is unprecedented,” Nord Stream AG, the Switzerland-based company that operates Nord Stream 1 and the not-yet-complete Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which still contains gas.

=> ↺ Marvel Heads Revealed to Be Closely Connected to Israeli Intelligence

• With Marvel’s U.S. military propaganda in full swing, it seems the studio is now turning its focus to Israeli nationalism.

=> ↺ ‘There aren’t enough tourniquets for all of you’ The Russian army through the eyes of new conscripts — Meduza

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Biogen Whistleblower Lawsuit Against Massive Kickback Scheme Ends In Huge Settlement

• Bawduniak informed two Biogen executives that if he compiled information on the doctors it would “make it clear that Biogen was making payments for prescriptions.” Still, one of the executives who had asked for the information pressed on with their requests and eventually obtained it from other sources.In February 2011, Bawduniak was demoted to “thought leader liaison” and no longer directly received reports on “at risk” doctors.

=> ↺ Citizens, Sheriff Force County Judge To Withdraw Unconstitutional Order Forbidding Filming In Front Of The Courthouse

• Judges have plenty of power, especially local judges who can run their jurisdiction as they see fit without fearing too much pushback from higher courts, residents, or area law enforcement.

Environment

=> ↺ “Silent Spring” remains a rousing call to action

• She charted the damage wreaked by DDT on ecosystems in North America in meticulous detail, citing numerous studies. After the insecticide was used in British Columbia in 1957, salmon populations in four major rivers were all but wiped out. The impact of DDT on birds was equally devastating. The chemical remained in the environment and moved up the food chain, poisoning birds who gobbled contaminated fish. Reports from around America found that bald eagles were struggling to reproduce. America’s national symbol “seems to be on the verge of extinction”, Carson wrote.

• Nor was it only fish and fowl that were at risk. DDT was a health threat to humans too, Carson explained. The toxic chemical accumulates in the body and has been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

=> ↺ What the Climate Movement Can Learn From Collective Trauma Healing

• But this week she will address a theme, rarely mentioned in U.N. negotiations, that she sees as the hidden culprit behind 30 years of missed chances to confront the climate crisis: the legacy of collective trauma. 

=> ↺ Opinion | To Confront the Climate Crisis, Universities Must Refuse Fossil Fuel Industry Funding

• After a summer of record-breaking heat waves sweeping the northern hemisphere from Europe to China to California and while environmental justice advocates debate the merits of climate provisions of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act passed by the U.S. Congress, there’s another critical, if less well known, front opening in the struggle to support climate action.

=> ↺ Connecting the Dots Between Climate Devastation and Fossil Fuel Profits

• Zulfiqar Kunbhar, a Karachi-based journalist with expertise in climate coverage, explains that “things are very critical” in the rain-affected areas of his nation. Kunbhar has been visiting impacted regions and has seen firsthand the massive “agricultural loss and livelihood loss” among Pakistan’s farming communities.

=> ↺ Breaching Human Rights: Australia, Climate Change and the Torres Strait Islands

• The then Australian Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow was left red-faced in making his responding remarks.  “The core message from the UN Human Rights Committee was that we must work harder and smarter to protect the human rights of all people in Australia.”

=> ↺ Florida Told to Brace for Deadly Impact as Ian Expected to Become Category 4 Hurricane

• “If you’re good at prayer put Tampa on your list—the worst-case scenarios for Ian are haunting.”

=> ↺ DC Protests Highlight US Climate Opposition to Manchin Deal, World Bank Head

• Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, who spoke at both rallies, told DeSmog, “The thing we desperately need to do, according to every scientist, is use less fossil fuel. Why we would make it easier to build more fossil fuel projects, it’s just craziness. There’s no logical argument for it. Their only argument for it is ‘I’ve got enough money and political power to push it through.’ But that’s not an argument, that’s just power.”

=> ↺ Japan Wants To Decarbonize With The Help Of Ammonia

• With climate change concerns front of mind, the world is desperate to get to net-zero carbon output as soon as possible. While direct electrification is becoming popular for regular passenger cars, it’s not yet practical for more energy-intensive applications like aircraft or intercontinental shipping. Thus, the hunt has been on for cleaner replacements for conventional fossil fuels.

Energy

=> ↺ C.E.O. of Celsius, the [Cryptocurrency] Bank, Resigns

• Alex Mashinsky, who founded the cryptocurrency company Celsius Network, which filed for bankruptcy in July, said on Tuesday that he was resigning as chief executive.

• Chris Ferraro, Celsius’s chief financial officer, will serve as Mr. Mashinsky’s interim replacement, the company said in a statement.

=> ↺ Riding for Your Life

• Hiding in plain sight, however, is the staggering number of e-bike repair shops that dot the city. Like this one on 53rd St. on the east side of Manhattan: [...]

=> ↺ 15K Miles of New Oil Pipelines Worldwide Show ‘Almost Deliberate Failure to Meet Climate Goals’

• Titled Crude Awakening: Oil Pipelines in Development Across the Globe, the new report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) finds that the United States is currently pursuing more new oil pipeline capacity by length than any other country, with a total of around 1,700 miles of pipelines either proposed or already under construction.

=> ↺ Big Business Lobby Backs Manchin Effort to Salvage Fossil Fuel Permitting Deal

=> ↺ ‘People Power Has Won The Day’: Manchin Dirty Deal Defeated

• Climate campaigners and people on the frontlines of the planetary emergency celebrated Tuesday after Sen. Joe Manchin requested that his fossil fuel-friendly permitting reforms be stripped out of a stopgap funding bill.

=> ↺ Emissions Unleashed by Manchin Deal Would ‘Wipe Out’ Any Climate Gains: Analysis

• “Striking as they are, these numbers are likely an underestimate of the total emissions the permitting legislation would unlock.”

=> ↺ Big Business Lobby Endorses Permitting Overhaul as Manchin Tries to Salvage Dirty Deal

• Ahead of an expected procedural vote on Tuesday, the Chamber’s Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley said in a statement that Manchin (D-W.Va.) “has crafted thoughtful legislation that makes material improvements to the permitting process and can pass Congress right now.”

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ The Restortification of Holland Lake

=> ↺ The Law of Cows

• The law of cows regulates the exploitation, maltreatment, cruelty, and yearly murder of over three hundred million cows worldwide. (Pigs top the slaughter list, with more than 1.5 billion heads). In many countries, livestock laws are ineffective or remain unenforced. The cattle furnish the meat, milk, and cowhides supply shoes, wallets, jackets, belts, and furniture. “Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive.” Gandhi. Most states exempt cattle from animal cruelty laws, allowing the branding, removing of horns and tails, and castration of male cattle. Nature has endowed cows with milk to feed their young, but humans control the cows, constantly impregnate them, and ween off their calves quickly to divert milk for human consumption. Some humans prefer the tender meat of the young over that of their parents.

Overpopulation

=> ↺ How China Targets the Global Fish Supply

• In the summer of 2020, the conservation group Oceana counted nearly 300 Chinese ships operating near the Galápagos, just outside Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone, the 200 nautical miles off its territory where it maintains rights to natural resources under the Law of the Sea Treaty. The ships hugged the zone so tightly that satellite mapping of their positions traced the zone’s boundary.

• Together, they accounted for nearly 99 percent of the fishing near the Galápagos. No other country came close.

• “Our sea can’t handle this pressure anymore,” said Alberto Andrade, a fisherman from the Galápagos. The presence of so many Chinese vessels, he added, has made it harder for local fishermen inside Ecuador’s territorial waters, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

=> ↺ Humanity Will Eat Itself Through Violence, War, Hatred and Neglect

Finance

=> ↺ Student Debt Cancellation Will Help Rural Communities Too

• Last month, President Biden announced his plan to erase $10,000 in student debt for borrowers who earn less than $125,000 per year, with an additional $10,000 for Pell Grant recipients, a form of aid awarded to low-income families with exceptional financial need.

=> ↺ Suit Against Student Debt Relief Slammed as ‘Transparently Frivolous Publicity Stunt’

• Frank Garrison, a lawyer at the right-wing Pacific Legal Foundation, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana arguing that Biden’s debt cancellation plan will have “untold economic impacts” on Americans like him and claiming he will now be forced to have his student debt canceled and then taxed.

=> ↺ The Rise of Trussonomics

• Cuts have been promised across the board, from income tax to stamp duty on home purchases.  The 45% additional rate of income tax for those earning above £150,000 will be scrapped, leaving the rate of 40% for those having incomes above £50,271.  A cut in the basic rate of income tax from 20% to 19% will be brought forward to April 2023.  Corporation tax would remain at 19%, and not increased to 25% as had been initially planned.

=> ↺ After the Royal Psychodrama, the Tory Neoliberal Class War Resumes

• The budget’s key features…

=> ↺ What Lessons Can We Draw From the Time the Wealthy Fled New York?

=> ↺ Biden Promised “Good-Paying Union Jobs,” But It Will Take Organizing to Get Them

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Search for Dirt on the Twitter Whistle-Blower

• Hours earlier, CNN and the Washington Post had reported that Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter (Mudge) Zatko, had filed a whistle-blower disclosure to federal agencies, accusing the social-media platform of reckless security practices. Zatko’s sweeping claims, if proven, could aid Elon Musk in his attempt to terminate his forty-four-billion-dollar agreement to acquire Twitter, a legal fight with implications of billions of dollars for investors. The dozens of e-mails and LinkedIn messages received by people in Zatko’s professional orbit appeared to be mostly from research-and-advisory companies, part of a burgeoning industry whose clients include investment firms and individuals jockeying for financial advantage through information. At least six research outfits—Gerson Lehrman Group (G.L.G.), AlphaSights, Mosaic Research Management, Ridgetop Research, Coleman Research Group, and Guidepoint—approached former colleagues of Zatko’s at Stripe, Google, and the Pentagon research agency DARPA. All offered to pay for information, sometimes noting that the compensation would be high or apparently unrestricted. At least two investment firms, Farallon Capital Management L.L.C. and Pentwater Capital Management L.P., also sought information from individuals close to Zatko.

• An associate at AlphaSights reached out to Wasserman via e-mail. She did not identify her firm’s client, but she wrote that they wanted to understand Zatko’s “personality, leadership style, validity and history.” She added, “We compensate well because we know this is a difficult and confusing ask at first.” Another Stripe veteran, Jaclyn Schoof, wrote to the Slack group that she had received the same offer from AlphaSights. “They said they didn’t care how much it would cost them… seems really weird,” she said. A fourth member of the group, Niels Provos, who had worked with Zatko at Google and was later persuaded by him to fill his role at Stripe, received offers of payment from AlphaSights, as well as from two other firms, Farallon and Mosaic. “They were happy to pay $1000/hr when I was fishing for more information,” he wrote, of Farallon’s consultant. (A spokesperson for Farallon said that payment was discussed only after Provos broached the subject.)

• [...]

• None of the members of the Stripe chat who spoke with me said that they accepted payment or agreed to speak to the firms about Zatko, and all said they wished to defend his credibility. For Zatko, the inquiries have been another source of anxiety in a dizzying period that has thrust him into an intense spotlight. He has been simultaneously preparing for his upcoming Congressional testimony—to which he has devoted long hours of preparation in recent days—and for a deposition in the Musk trial. “When I decided to become a lawful whistle-blower, I knew my claims would be aggressively scrutinized, and I welcome that,” he told me. “What I didn’t expect and find so disappointing are the anonymously sourced ad-hominem attacks—and especially the harassment of our friends, to find new ways to disparage and undermine us.”

=> ↺ America’s False Idols: Today’s tech billionaires think they’re self-made geniuses who deserve veneration. But we don’t have to believe that.

• What turns this from bad to terrible, what makes it un-American, is that these advantages are becoming entrenched. The elites are digging in, protecting their growing fortunes from the risks of the very markets they claim to support. Bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies are the tools of entrenchment. For those at the top, our capitalism has become cronyism: rugged individualism on the way up, but socialism on the way down.

• Value is now so concentrated in the tech sector that six companies—Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft—accounted for more than 20 percent of the S&P 500 by the summer of 2021. Stock valuations used to be about a company’s fundamentals and technicals. Now they’re about storytelling and vision, which the CEO concocts and the media propagates. The result? Shares in virtually bankrupt companies such as AMC and Hertz spiked in huge trading volume in 2021, and three electric-vehicle firms—Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian—were together worth more than the rest of the auto and the airline industries combined.

• Until very recently, going public implied the transition of a company from a benevolent dictatorship to a republic, where ownership is distributed and decision-making power lies in an elected body (the board). This is less and less the case in tech. Company insiders, usually the founders and the principal venture capitalists, are securing unprecedented control of the public companies that employ them.

=> ↺ How to convince leadership to improve security

• If you do not want to experience a breach like Uber, you need buy in from leadership (the chief officers) to improve your organization’s security. Pointing at Uber has been highly effective, but it is not enough to just say “we can’t be like them!” – leadership already thinks that. Instead, you need to understand the risks that the example suffered and produce tailored recommendations to reduce those risks.

=> ↺ Meta Removes Chinese Effort to Influence U.S. Elections

• The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names of women, according to the company’s report.

• The users later posed as conservative Americans, promoting gun rights and opposition to abortion, while criticizing President Biden. By April, they mostly presented themselves as liberals from Florida, Texas and California, opposing guns and promoting reproductive rights. They mangled the English language and failed to attract many followers.

=> ↺ Jared Kushner’s Firm to Pay $3.25M for Deceiving, Cheating Tenants in Baltimore

=> ↺ Jared Kushner’s Firm to Pay $3.25M for Deceiving & Cheating Tenants in Baltimore’s “Kushnerville”

• A property management company partly owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has agreed to pay a $3.25 million fine to the state of Maryland and to reimburse potentially tens of thousands of tenants in Baltimore. The state of Maryland sued the Kushner-owned company after ProPublica published a 2017 investigation that exposed how the company hounded low-income tenants with a barrage of lawsuits, eviction notices and late fees — even when residents had the legal right to continue living there. We speak with Alec MacGillis, the author of the 2017 ProPublica report, who describes how Kushner was the leading architect in the housing scandal that left many residents paying for uninhabitable units riddled with pests and sewage issues. He says while the settlement is a “relative pittance” for Kushner, it has delivered some “solid form of accountability” for his company’s wrongdoings, and the money will likely make a difference in the lives of those tenants who were harmed.

=> ↺ Philly Residents Organize to Block Evictions in University City Townhomes & Preserve Affordable Housing

• Low-income Black and Brown housing activists in Philadelphia are fighting to stop the displacement of residents who live in an affordable housing complex in the largely gentrified neighborhood of University City. The complex, known as University City Townhomes, was built to provide affordable housing to low-income residents, many of whom are elderly and disabled, but the property owner has since announced plans to redevelop the property, which is near the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. We speak with University City Townhomes residents Rasheda Alexander and Sheldon Davids, who have held months of encampments and protests alongside William Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “It was always about greed and money and racism,” says Barber, who notes the move to redevelop the complex is part of a larger assault on poor people and housing services in the United States.

=> ↺ Opinion | Brazil’s Election Will Be Decisive for Indigenous People, the Environment, and the Climate Crisis

• Over the past two decades, the expansion of cattle ranching and industrial agriculture in Brazil, especially soybean monocultures, has been devastating. Between 1985 and 2020, the Brazilian Amazon lost around 82 million hectares of natural vegetation, including 53 million hectares of forests. Coincidentally, during this time, agricultural land rose to more than 81 million hectares within the country. In 2020 alone, Brazil lost 2.4 million hectares of savanna, of which 40 percent were in protected areas.

=> ↺ Casting a Discerning Eye on Political Theater

• By itself, the term “political theater” carries no moral valence. Whatever valence it does carry derives from a performance’s adherence to truthfulness and from the alignment of its messaging with the methods used to put it together. When acts of nonviolent civil disobedience incorporate dramatic dimensions (actors, scenes, conflict, audience) to communicate political messages, they can certainly be considered as forms of political theater.

=> ↺ The GOP’s MAGA Campaigns Aren’t Going So Well

• The reasons go on and on but the bottom line remains the same — if you’re not with us, you’re against us. But lo and behold, it would appear there are far more voters who are not marching in goose-step with the MAGA crowd, and who believe in tolerance, acceptance, and common humanity. And that’s causing Congressional Republicans to distance themselves from those positions.

=> ↺ McConnell Gushes Over Sinema as She Seeks to Hand GOP Even More Filibuster Power

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ Trump’s Heartless QAnon Embrace

• Trump is making it much harder for people to leave that world, because the man they admire most is endorsing all their wild, violently millenarian fantasies. “It blows away the doubt,” said Rothschild. Much was made in 2016 of Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables.” But few have demonstrated as much contempt for the people who love Trump as Trump has himself.

=> ↺ Brazilians are about to vote. And they’re dealing with familiar viral election lies

• The ability to forward encrypted messages thousands of times to big WhatsApp groups helped hoaxes like that one take off like wildfire. Marketing groups scraped phone numbers and sold campaigns the ability to send hundreds of thousands of WhatApp messages at a time, Campos Mello reported. A study in the weeks leading up to the 2018 vote found half of the most widely shared images in popular political groups on the app were false or misleading.

=> ↺ How the false rumor of a Chinese coup went viral

• But it’s interesting to dissect how a ridiculous rumor could be elevated and spread so widely that it made it to Twitter’s deeply flawed trending list over the weekend. So today I’ll trace it back to its roots and unpack how it gained traction.

• The story basically went through three stages, brewing in Chinese circles before being translated into English by influencers opposed to the Chinese government and finally being amplified by Indian Twitter accounts.

=> ↺ Scientists urge top publisher to withdraw faulty climate study

• Four prominent climate scientists contacted by AFP all said the study — of which they had been unaware — grossly manipulates data, cherry picking some facts and ignoring others that would contradict their discredited assertions.

• “The paper gives the appearance of being specifically written to make the case that there is no climate crisis, rather than presenting an objective, comprehensive, up-to-date assessment,” said Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts Research at Britain’s Met Office.

• The authors ignore the authoritative Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC) report published a couple of months before their study was submitted to Springer Nature, Betts noted.

=> ↺ Photo of the Day: Taiwanese compare Pooh in a bottle to Xi ‘coup’ in Beijing

• However, there have not been any credible reports of a coup actually taking place in Beijing or of Xi being placed in detention, other than possibly undergoing home quarantine after his trip to Central Asia the previous week. Nevertheless, Taiwanese netizens joked that the Poohs inside the bottles were meant to commemorate Xi’s capture.

• Before much discussion on the products could take place on Weibo, keyword phrases such as Winnie the Pooh Afternoon Black Tea were quickly blocked by Chinese censors. The cartoon character has been banned in China for years because of joking comparisons of Xi to the chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.

=> ↺ Conservatives Are Lying About Schools Teaching 8-Year-Olds ‘Porn Literacy’

• The claim that Idaho schools are teaching children “porn literacy” was catnip to people like Christopher Rufo, a right-wing activist who invented the panic over critical race theory; and Chaya Raichik, the creator of the far-right account Libs of TikTok. Both Rufo and Raichik promoted claims the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s claims, with the Libs of TikTok account tweeting that “Idaho state is using tax dollars to teach 8-year-olds ‘porn literacy.’”

• The rumor even made it all the way to Laura Ingraham, who regurgitated it on her Fox News show. “Over the years, right under parents’ noses, these deviant organizations burrowed into our culture and into our schools. They vacuumed up multimillion dollar contracts to flood our schools with values that are directly at odds with what most parents are teaching their children at home.” (For what it’s worth, more than 89 percent of parents of high school students support some form of sex education in schools regardless of their political affiliation, according to a 2017 study polling more than 1,600 parents.)

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Techdirt Podcast Episode 331: Kiwi Farms, Cloudflare, And Infrastructure Content Moderation

• When Mike wrote a post digging into some of the complex questions surrounding Cloudflare banning Kiwi Farms, there was plenty of backlash and disagreement — much of it thoughtful and well worth engaging with. Among the strongest critics was lawyer Mike Dunford, who composed a detailed Twitter thread that lead to a lengthy back-and-forth. This week, he joins us on the podcast to continue the conversation and discuss the welcome death of Kiwi Farms as well as broader issues of content moderation at the infrastructure layer.

=> ↺ Iran blocks social media, app stores and encrypted DNS amid Mahsa Amini protests

• Protests erupted in Iran over the last week following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was reportedly beaten to death by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating strict hijab rules. Amid the ongoing protests, which have reportedly resulted in at least 31 civilian deaths, Iranian authorities cracked down on the internet in an attempt to curb dissent.

• Over the past week, Iran experienced severe mobile network outages, in addition to increased levels of internet censorship. In this report, we share OONI network measurement findings from Iran on the blocking of WhatsApp, Instagram, Linkedin, Skype, Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and encrypted DNS (DNS over HTTPS). We also share IODA and Cloudflare Radar data on mobile network outages over the last few days.

=> ↺ Opinion | On Burning Books, Burning Book Publishers, and Me

• No one listened better than Studs.  For those of you old enough to remember, that’s Studs Terkel, of course. The most notable thing about him in person, though, was this: the greatest interviewer of his moment, perhaps of any moment, never stopped talking, except, of course, when he was listening to produce one of his memorable bestselling oral histories — he essentially created the form — ranging from Working and Hard Times to The Good War.

=> ↺ There Are Real Threats To Free Speech Everywhere. Cancel Culture Is Far Down The List

• I’ve written a few times lately about the overreaction many people seem to have to claims that “cancel culture” is a “threat to free speech.” Obviously, there are some examples of people overreacting to speech they dislike, but more often than not, the claims of “cancel culture” are really assholes upset that they’re being held accountable for being assholes. Even in the few cases that do appear to be unjust overreactions to speech, it feels like the people who make the biggest deal about it are actually those who are hiding behind those rare legitimate cases to hide their own fear of facing consequences for their own speech. A friend has referred to this as “cancelled man syndrome,” in which people who know they’re spewing questionable nonsense are scared to death of finally being called on it. It’s perhaps a close relation to “imposter syndrome,” but rather than having to just deal with your internal insecurities, you deal with it by insisting it’s unfair for people to criticize you too vocally.

=> ↺ ‘It was impossible not to hear’: Poet Artem Kamardin was reportedly beaten and raped by Russian police. We spoke to his roommate. — Meduza

• On September 26, Russian police showed up at the home of 31-year-old Moscow poet Artem Kamardin. After ransacking the apartment, officers proceeded to beat Kamardin, his girlfriend, Alexandra Popova, and their roommate, Alexander Menyukov. According to Kamardin’s lawyer, police also raped the poet with a dumbbell — not at the police station, but in his own home. Kamardin is currently still in police custody, and a criminal case has been opened against him for reciting anti-war poetry at an anti-mobilization event on Sunday. Meduza spoke to Kamardin’s roommate, Alexander Menyukov, who has now been released and is considered a witness in Kamardin’s case.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Suspect Detained in Poland in Dutch Reporter’s Slaying

• Two men were arrested near The Hague soon after De Vries were shot and are on trial for his murder. Prosecutors have sought life sentences for both. One of them is a Polish national, Kamil E., who was the alleged getaway driver.

• Another Polish national was arrested in July on suspicion of instructing the two men who carried out the hit. Two other suspects were arrested in Spain and Curacao on the same day.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Is UPS Retaliating Against Union Activists?

• Arlin is one of at least four Teamsters who say UPS fired them for their union work, and one of several who told me that, although harassment is common at the company, retaliation against activists is intensifying ahead of a new labor contract campaign. The current collective bargaining agreement covering the nearly 350,000 workers in the largest private-sector shop in the country will expire in July 2023. The newly elected Teamsters leadership has said the union is willing to strike if its demands aren’t met. (The last national strike by UPS workers, in 1997, brought the union significant wins, including the largest wage increases in the company’s history.)

=> ↺ “Women! Life! Freedom!” Iranian Women Lead Nationwide Protests After Death of Mahsa Amini

• Dozens of people in Iran have been killed in a series of escalating women-led protests demanding justice for Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in the custody of the so-called morality police. Amini was detained on September 13 for allegedly leaving some of her hair visible in violation of Iran’s hijab law. Iranian American writer Hoda Katebi calls the protests “exciting and beautiful,” bringing together women from across economic and ethnic backgrounds and opening up conversations about the policing of women’s bodies. She says the government is using the protests to “advance nationalist ideas,” crack down on Kurdish communities and propel a false narrative of an uprising against Islam. Katebi’s recent piece for the Los Angeles Times is titled “Iranian women are rising up to demand freedom. Are we listening?”

=> ↺ UN Human Rights Office ‘Deeply Disturbed’ by Arrests of Anti-War Protesters in Russia

• “Arresting people solely for exercising their rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty.”

=> ↺ University of Idaho Employees Warned Not to Discuss Abortion or Provide Birth Control

• “Human rights are interdependent, and the fall of Roe v. Wade sets in motion a dangerous array of consequences that will cascade far beyond the gutting of abortion rights.”

=> ↺ Introducing Giorgia Meloni: How the US Opened the Door for Fascism’s Return to Italy

• Italy has become like a country of spoiled children that has lost its identity. It has been colonised and lobotomised by multinational corporate interests, the mythological concept of the American dream, mass consumerism, US/NATO dictated militarism, and a crass materialism. For almost 30 years, from Berlusconi’s first election in 1994 and even going back to the post WW2 era when the United States asserted its sphere of influence by steamrolling an anti-communist agenda in order to maintain geopolitical control over the peninsula, Italy has been slowly but steadily pulling out its historic roots and erasing its historical memory.

=> ↺ Christian White Supremacy Rising: The Fascist Connection

• The lion’s share of book bans are in GOP and battleground states, most prominently in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. The bans target books concentrating on issues related to race and anti-racism, sexism and anti-sexism, and LGBTQ identity and prejudice.

=> ↺ Fear of a Majority Faction

• Famously, there is no right to housing in the USA. So there you go.

=> ↺ Victory in Cuba – New Family Code Affirms Equality within Family Life

• The opportunity came in 2018. A Constituent Assembly that year undertook extensive alterations of the 1976 Constitution. In the process – It became really a new Constitution – opposition cropped up in the Assembly and in public consultations to provisions in the proposed Family Code, specifically authorization of same-sex marriages and allowance for gay people to adopt children.

=> ↺ “Art as Solidarity” and Little Amal

=> ↺ Florida Mail Carriers Win Back Sunday Breaks With Direct Action

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Choosing a non-Windows OS on Lenovo Secured-core PCs is trickier than it should be

• Matthew Garrett, an information security architect, was keen to check out Lenovo’s latest Pluton-equipped wares but found himself unable to boot Linux from a USB stick “for no obvious reason.”

• Pluton is Microsoft’s latest effort to secure PCs and can act as both a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) or as a non-TPM security co-processor. It emerged in 2020, with Microsoft saying Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm were all onboard. While Acer launched tech with the kit in May, Dell is not keen and Lenovo started the year saying it wouldn’t be turned on by default.

• A Microsoft spokesperson told The Register in January that using the tech with Linux was “an unsupported scenario.”

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ Tariffs and Government Granted Patent Monopolies Lead to Corruption

• It’s the same story with government-granted patent monopolies on prescription drugs, except the effective tariffs are much larger, as is the amount of money at issue. Patent monopolies on prescription drugs can often raise the price of a drug by 20 or 30 times the free market price, making them equivalent to tariffs of 2000—3000 percent.

=> ↺ Elon Musk Remains Exactly Correct About Patents: They’re For The Weak

• While we’ve been criticizing some of Elon Musk’s actions and statements lately, we still stand by what we’ve said for years: that his view on patents is entirely, unquestionably, correct. In 2014, he pledged to open up all of Tesla’s patents. And when some investors insisted he didn’t really mean it, he clarified that he absolutely mean that anyone should just use anything they find in Tesla’s patents.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Japanese art platform hits back at Chinese pirates with banned political keywords

• A Japanese art and manga website that was cloned by Chinese pirates has hit back by encoding forbidden keywords and hashtags banned by Chinese censors into its code, prompting the authorities to shut the pirated version down.

=> ↺ AnyStories Drags Cloudflare to the Copyright Claims Board Over Pirate Site

• Popular reading app AnyStories has filed a complaint against Cloudflare at the Copyright Claims Board. According to the Singaporean company, Cloudflare should be required to take action against customers who operate pirate sites, even if it doesn’t host the content.

=> ↺ Anti-Piracy Outfit Rightscorp Hit With $15m Lawsuit After Sale Went Wrong

• Rightscorp, whose data supports several major copyright infringement liability lawsuits against ISPs, has been hit with a $15m lawsuit. Plaintiff American Films, which previously claimed to have acquired the US operations of notorious ‘copyright troll’ outfit GuardaLey, says Rightscorp dangled an acquisition offer and then used confidential information to make bank.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Growth

• The increase in output itself makes for an escalation in human aspirations, and thus negates the expected positive impact on welfare. . . If the view suggested here has merit, economic growth does not raise a society to some ultimate state of plenty. Rather, the growth process itself engenders ever-growing wants that lead it ever onward. – Richard Easterlin

=> ↺ Hard Determinism

• Hard determinism, as described in the book, states that everything is determined by past events. It is not clear from the book if it’s meant to be applied only to the physical world, beings’ behaviour, or both, but it treats only human behaviour.

• Applied to human behaviour, the idea holds that we have no effect in future events, because we cannot do anything other than what we’re predetermined to do, essentially meaning that we have no free will.

Politics

=> ↺ On Politics

• It has always been thus. Nothing new under the sun. US politics is a messy business. The divisions in the 19th century were even sharper than they are now, and they didn’t have the Internet. There were instances of legislators using violence against one another, not just cruel words. I do suspect however that the US is about 10 minutes away from a second civil war.

• Compromise is really over-rated. Ever heard of the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution? How about the Missouri Compromise?

• If you think politics is like a sports match today, you should look up the Nika Riots on Wikipedia. I remember when we covered them in one of my college history courses, and I was like, “Holy shit! That is so modern!”

Technical

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Welcome!

• Hi everyone! Welcome to my gemlog. I’m excited to share the random things I like to work on with you all!

• I guess I should tell you all a bit about me. I’m a recent college graduate who loves music, technology, video games and Magic: The Gathering.

Programming

=> ↺ Extreme-Forth Musings

• Forth is a curious animal, especially when stripped down to the minimum.

• Forth has no syntax. The input is a list of words and literals. The tokenization/compilation of the source is normally a linear process (that is, procedure calls just compile tokens that will invoke the procedure when executed); however immediate words can take over the parsing process and do whatever they want.

• It is tempting to create a higher-level syntax with words like IF … THEN and even ELSE, which fuckles the data IF leaves on the stack during compilation and rearranges the targets of jumps. This is cool when you first see it, but…

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

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